Burnside fell back to Knoxville, and we went into camp around the
town. The principal defensive work was Fort Sanders, which had
walls twenty feet high, with a ditch ten feet deep. Efforts were
made to guard the river, both below and above Knoxville, so as to
prevent Burnside from receiving supplies or reinforcements, and the
works were occasionally shelled. There was a good deal of delay,
for one reason and another, and we were so near the town that
we could hear the tunes played by the band at Fort Sanders. The
favorite air then was: “When this Cruel War is Over.” Finally, an
attack was ordered to be made on Fort Sanders, but, although our
men fought with their usual gallantry, they were driven back. This
was on the 29th of November. In front of the fort trees had been
cut, so as to fall with their branches outward, and wires had been
stretched from stump to stump to trip up any assailants. Our men
struggled through the abattis under a deadly fire, and some of them
crossed the ditch and climbed up the parapet, but they were hurled
back by the defenders of the fort, and thrown into the ditch. Hand
grenades were used by the garrison with great effect. A second
assault was tried, but equally in vain. These attacks cost us about
five hundred men.
In one of the attacks we made, Captain Winthrop, of the 44th Foot,
in the English army, who was on leave of absence, and had been
with us for some time, behaved with the most brilliant gallantry.
We were taking a hasty lunch in the breastworks under fire as the
assault began, and Winthrop rode off to see what was going on.
Finding that the troops were advancing, he rode out in front of
the line and right up to the enemy’s works, striking with his sword
at the soldiers who held them. In less time than it takes to tell
it he was lying on the ground with a big hole in his collar bone.
It was a very painful wound, but he recovered.
The attack on Knoxville having failed utterly, and tidings having
been received of the defeat of Bragg, at Missionary Ridge,
Longstreet raised the siege, and retreated to Virginia. The rest of
the winter we passed on the line of railroad between Knoxville and
Bristol, my head-quarters being at Russellville. The men suffered
frightfully. It is no exaggeration to say that on such marches as
they were obliged to make in that bitter weather they left the
bloody tracks of their feet on the sharp stones of the roads.
It was a bleak, desolate, inhospitable country, yet we managed to
have a merry Christmas, although there was considerable difficulty
in getting the requisite quantum of brandy to make egg-nog with.
The medical staff had plenty of whiskey and brandy, for the sick
and wounded, and a good deal of the stimulants went, I am sure,
to those who did not require them. There were some stills in the
neighborhood, and there was active demand for all the liquor these
could supply. I have known our people to fill their canteens
with the apple jack, as it dropped from the end of the worm, and
drink it delightedly, as soon as by immersing the canteen in a
branch they had cooled the liquor sufficiently to allow it to be
gulped down. I sent Henry Tyler on Christmas Eve to a place ten or
fifteen miles away to get a canteen of apple jack for our Christmas
egg-nog. Morning came, and he did not return. We were very uneasy,
as the woods were the favorite lurking place of bushwhackers. As
one of my men explained, “there was a whacker in every bush.” In
the middle of the day Tyler turned up. Overcome by the cold or
fatigue, he had gone to sleep in the middle of the road, and when
he awoke in the morning he found an empty canteen by his side, and
his horse standing a few paces off. But it was a hard winter, in
spite of egg-nog and apple jack.
Finding that there was no probability of an early move, I asked
permission to go down to Richmond for a few days. Leave was given
me, but I had to ride about sixty miles in intensely cold weather,
on a fiendishly obstinate and perverse mule, to reach Bristol,
where I took the cars for Richmond. By this time Confederate
soldiers were treated with scant respect by the railroad officials.
On our way to the Sweet Water Valley, I remember the conductor
quietly stopped the train and told us that we should not go on,
unless we cut a supply of wood for his engine. But it was worse
on the train that was to take us to Lynchburg. There was no fire
in the cars at night, and I really thought I should have frozen.
The men in the cars stood it as long as they could, and, when
they found that the conductor would do nothing for them, they
deliberately broke up the blinds of the car, and with these made a
fire which furnished sufficient warmth to keep us from freezing.
Had the conductor resisted, I believe the indignant Confederates
would have killed him; and in that case a jury of soldiers, at all
events, would have returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.
While at Mr. Tyler’s, at Richmond, I found that I had been
recommended very strongly for promotion to the rank of Captain;
but was informed that it was necessary that I should stand an
examination before the recommendation could be complied with.
It seemed rather an absurd thing that I should be required to
be examined, when General Longstreet and Colonel Baldwin, the
Chief Ordnance officer of General Lee’s army, had shown by their
recommendations that I was fully qualified for the duties that
I had to discharge. So I went to Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of
War, and told him what I thought of it. Kind old man as he was,
he listened to me very patiently when I explained to him that I
had been too long in the field to know as much as a youngster who
had just been graduated from college, and that if my promotion
depended upon my familiarity with Conic Sections and the Calculus,
I should probably remain a Lieutenant all my life. Mr. Seddon said
it was necessary to undergo an examination, but he would make an
endorsement upon the papers that would put me in a proper position.
The endorsement was this: “The Board, in examining Lieutenant
Dawson for promotion, will make due allowance for any deficiency in
theoretical knowledge which may have been caused by the engrossing
nature of his duties in the field.”
When I returned to head-quarters, I found that Colonel Manning had
recovered; and a Board, consisting of Manning and two Captains of
Artillery, was appointed to examine me. The examination was both
written and oral. I was to answer in writing certain questions
which had been sent from Richmond, and was then to be examined
by the members of the Board. The written examination was rather
wide in its scope, as it ranged from questions so simple as: “What
is the centre of gravity?” and “What is a logarithm?” to such a
question as this: “With a gun of a given calibre and at a given
elevation, and with a given charge of powder and a projectile of
a given weight, what will be the velocity of the projectile as it
passes the muzzle of the piece?” My answer to some such question
as this was: “I don’t know.” The oral examination was very funny,
as Colonel Manning insisted that the calibre of a 10-pound Parrott
was three inches, although I assured him it was only two and
nine-tenths. As may be imagined, taking Colonel Manning’s lack of
familiarity with Ordnance duty into account and the suggestive
endorsement of the Secretary of War, I passed my examination with
flying colors.
Colonel Manning was taken ill and obliged to leave us for a time,
and there was no event of importance, except a change in my
head-quarters from Russellville to Abingdon, until April, 1864,
when we were ordered to Gordonsville. On our way there I stopped
to see Colonel Manning, who was being taken care of at a private
house at Charlottesville, and to my great joy received from him my
commission as Captain of Artillery, dated April 2d, 1864.